Cherokee Basket Designs

This design has become known as Peace Pipe. This is a design which a recent well known basketweaver, Thelma Forrest, in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has done baskets in both river cane and commercial materials. You can see an article in the Cherokee Phoenix of October 2004, which chronicles this artist and her work, including a photo of her and her work.

This design was called Chief's Heart. The black spot at the top doesn't mean anything, when I was scanning them another design overlapped, and it is not part of the design.

This is called Arrows with a smaller version which is called Lightning, with a zig-zag effect in the basket.

This design was named Chief's Daughter. This is a very common design in Cherokee Baskets. Again there is no indication which clan this design may have come from or which family in the early 1900s would have supplied or woven it. This particular design is a variation of the Diamond design with the small cross in the center.

This is a simple diamond shape. Notice mainly a 3 pattern. You can go either over or under where the blue dots are and the effect of the design will be determined from that, but generally the blue dotts indicate where the weave stroke has gone over. In a diagonal woven basket the design will go at about a 45 degree angle, allowing you to repeat any of the designs. When weaving a design in a basket it is also necessary to plan out where your designs will be and then plan for the correct number of spokes to give you a repeat design that is evenly spaced.

The old Cherokee Basket Designs have been lost, except for those that were collected by Lottie Stamper in the early 1900s. She also gave the designs names, however early basket designs did not have names, but different Cherokee Clans wove different designs. It was not uncommon to identify a clan or clan member by the baskets they wove. These are a few of the old Cherokee Designs, many continue on down into later baskets. There is virtually no limit to how the designs can be arranged or used in the basket. The only limits is the type and size of the basket. The number of contemporary designs that can be used is virtually unlimited as well. In the Double Woven basket by placing variations of colors and natural cane, designs can get very abstract as well. Older basketweavers also varied the cane by cutting the inside spokes once woven and replacing them with different colored spokes to continue on the outside wall of a double woven basket, thus making for even more variations in designs a